


Time For Love

by MadamRogers



Category: Actor RPF, British Actor RPF, ben barnes - Fandom
Genre: Confessions, F/M, Sweetness, be warned you may faint, pure fluff, what can you expect it's Ben
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 03:26:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17256734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadamRogers/pseuds/MadamRogers
Summary: Ben realizes he's in love with you and struggles with figuring out how to tell you. But you're in love with him and haven't told because you think of the worst case scenario.





	Time For Love

**Author's Note:**

> For a winter celebration on Tumblr. 
> 
> Prompts used:
> 
> 10\. ”Is this for me?”
> 
> 13\. ”Kiss me”
> 
> 42\. ”They used to say it’s the time for love… I love you”
> 
> 47\. ”Do you look different or do the lights…?”

He was in the living room, and the only light came from the Christmas tree and the candles. He was humming a song under his breath as his fingers met the keyboard of the piano. The way his playing filled the house was just as warm as the Christmas spirit in his chest, under his heart. There were some words he almost pronounced properly, some were just hums and something halfway to proper words.

He didn’t have notes, he was just freestyling something he had just made up. That’s why he wasn’t exactly singing. Now that he realized, he was actually saying your name. Your name and some words that weren’t important at all.

He bit the inside of his lower lip at the catch. His lips were twitching, but it didn’t stop him.

”Ben?” asked your voice from the kitchen. Even over the sound of the notes, he could hear your steps on the floor.

Or just knew exactly the way you walked, what your steps sounded like.

”Mmhmm?” he answered, fingers still dancing on the keyboard.

The way you walked…

He played it. Always so full of life; high notes, something in the middle, lower parts… Thud. Thud. Thud. He was meeting the keyboard harder with his fingertips. And then slowly, carefully again. Then with the same lively mix of sounds and notes from the different sides of the keyboard. The way you walked depended on the way you felt, entirely.

The steps had stopped.

But his mind hadn’t.

At first it was a lot like River Flows In You but met Vivaldi in the middle. What would Shakespeare sound like if his plays were compositions? No, not Shakespeare. Jane Austen. Yes!

He knew you were probably standing somewhere around the room by now. His heart was beating faster, like it was full of little birds or foxes that wanted to see the new world around them.

Back to Yiruma, then something a little more traditional… He let his fingers go where they wanted, where his mind led them.

How your happiness was bubbling inside you… The way you felt everything; thoroughly, deeply, madly… Your spirit, the sorrows and misery he wanted to wipe away, carry on his own shoulders before they’d be able to crack you in half. Sometimes you were sad, but still… so beautiful.

He played the highest note. It was light, yet somehow so soft and pure.

”Ben?”

He felt how his cheeks got flushed. You were closer than he had thought you would be. Right behind him, watching over his shoulder without daring to interrupt.

He turned to face you and was sure his cheeks were even warmer now.

Had you guessed?

”Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt…” You sounded sorry as you looked at him blinking his dark brown eyes.

”No, it’s fine,” he gave you a warm smile. ”I wasn’t… Or technically I was but… I… Do you look different or do the lights…?” he spoke the last sentence a bit quicker after stuttering so much, taking a good look at you. You stood there in woolen socks, pyjama pants and his jumper that was too big, but you loved it.

And to him, you were more beautiful than ever. Hair a bit messy, you looked like you had either been outside in the wind or had just woken up from a very nice nap. Your hands disappeared under the sleeves of his jumper and you looked at him with this warmly asking gaze, just a few inches away from sucking on your own lips.

He wanted nothing more than to scream it right at your face, wrap you in his arms and pepper your face with never-ending kisses.

He didn’t do that. He felt his cheeks warming up a bit more under your gaze, the silence between the two of you.

He knew now that it wasn’t the lights. That sentence had been for saving the situation anyways.

If he opened his mouth now, only same kind of nonsense would come out. But this silence was spreading and spreading, and he was sure his cheeks would explode if they warmed up even a little more.

You weren’t able to talk either. You had been wrapping the last presents for the friends you were supposed to see before New Year’s but hadn’t been able to see before Christmas. It had gotten your hair all messy, even your head. It was exhausting, so much tape and wrapping paper, and the little tie wasn’t a tie at all, it looked like a total failure and you had just sat there on the floor for a while.

Until you had heard Ben playing the piano.

He was perfect when he played. He was always perfect. But there was this different kind of concentration, this serious energy around him, full of love for what he was doing, full of presense and calmness.

He was a lot different when he got excited about something else. He was giggly and loud and jumped around like a jackrabbit. He was like a little boy. Sometimes he got excited in silence. Even during those moments he was chuckling and trying to hide his laugh and twitching lips, you could see it all.

Those were the moments you realized you were in love with him.

You had known it for a few weeks. You were in love with Ben. But you hadn’t ran to tell him because to you love was something you already had. There’d be the time you’d say it out loud, but something told you he knew already. You had your own ways of telling him you loved him. You made sure to show it every day, even with just small gestures or words.

But watching him playing like that; a song you couldn’t recognize… You knew you had to tell him. Because if you didn’t do it now, you’d go back to thinking it was something he knew already. The thing was, you were still a bit scared of the thought that he might not feel the same. You haven’t found a reason to, but it was still nibbling your ribs.

What if he didn’t love you…?

You knew you were late but you laughed kindly. ”I’m the walking image of the chaos in the kitchen. C’est la vie and whatever,” you rolled your eyes and chuckled again.

Ben tittered a bit.

”What are you playing?” you asked.

He turned to look at the keyboard.

”I didn’t recognize it, you haven’t played it before.”

”It was not a song, I was just… I was just playing.”

Benjamin, you moron…

”It was beautiful. Where did it come from?”

You believed music, books, movies, characters… They all got started with a thought, an emotion, something. And as an actor Ben knew a lot about those feelings. That was why asking that didn’t feel stupid. It was probably the safest thing you could say at the moment.

He bit the inside of his lower lip again. Here he was… Now or never.

Now or never.

”Come, sit here with me,” he tapped the empty half of the bench as he moved a bit towards the other end. There was enough room for you, and you sat down looking at him.

He looked back into your eyes. This was the perfect moment. His fingertips found the keyboard again and he played a note from here and another from there as he started to speak.

”You know… The way you walk…”

The played a little of that part. He didn’t have them written on any notebook, not even on a piece of paper, but he’d probably remember them for the rest of his life.

”Your emotions… Your spirit… The way you are who you are…”

And he played all that. He played every single note he had played just a while ago, and you looked at his fingers. You looked at him and felt something burning behind your eyes.

Did he…?

Was he…?

”Is this for me?” you asked, voice small and silent.

He moved his hands on his lap and looked at you. ”Yeah, I…” He was closer to it than ever before. Than he’d probably be. He couldn’t escape now, that’d make him the worst moron of the history and a coward. Not only that, but he’d see you confused, even hurt.

He couldn’t hold it in any longer. He had held it for weeks now and soon the only thing that’d explode wasn’t his pair of cheeks.

”They used to say it’s the time for love…” He was smiling, but his cheeks were flushed again. ”I love you.”

You were sure you could hear how the doubts you had collapsed. How all the fears of him not loving you got washed away. You felt it in your heart; it was warm but it was hurting. The good kind of pain, you told yourself.

”I love you too,” you whispered. ”Kiss me.”

His eyes had turned worried, his whole face had been full of fear just a second before you got it out.

But now he softened. His right hand was cupping your cheek and you wrapped his other hand, intertwined your fingers with his as he closed the distance between the two of you. It wasn’t the first kiss you two shared, but in a way… It really was the first.

It was the kiss of the first I love you.


End file.
